“On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.” Famously stated by cartoonist Peter Steiner in 1993, this adage is still true today: in the online world, who you are may not necessarily be who you say you are. Users may create fake identities or may try to impersonate someone they are not. For example, there are many accounts of users creating a social networking account impersonating a famous artist, celebrity or politician. Users impersonating another person may use readily available information such as name, date or birth, marital status, and the like of the person they are trying to impersonate. A user impersonating another may also include pictures of the other person in their accounts to further maintain the illusion.
Similarly, users may create a fake identity, with a fake name, fake date of birth, fake address and the like. These users may also create multiple online accounts using this fake identity, such as a blog account, an email address account, a social networking system account and the like. The existence of such fake accounts themselves is often relied upon as “evidence” that the identity is real, thereby enabling the user to open further fake accounts, with other websites and businesses.
Some online systems need to verify the identity of the user creating the user account. For instance, those offering goods and services for sale through online systems generally must assume that users requesting those goods or service are real people. This is particularly the case in those online systems in which transactions begin in the online and end in the offline activities by the parties. For example, accommodation reservation systems may allow guests to search for, ask about, and book accommodations offered by host users. That is, the transaction starts at the accommodation reservation system and end with the user staying at the host user's property. The host would prefer to have a way to verify the identity of the guest. Similarly, in a ride sharing system, a rider makes an online request for a ride offered by a driver; the driver would prefer have a way to verify the identity of the rider.
Furthermore, even once the identity of a user is confirmed, those users offering accommodation or a rideshare may also want to know how trustworthy is the user asking for accommodation or a rideshare is. In addition, being able to determine whether users asking for accommodation or a rideshare and determine the trustworthiness of the same may encourage some people to offer accommodation or a rideshare to other people.